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U/-Fronting Is Not Monolithic: Two Types of Fronted /U/ in Houston Anglos

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U/-Fronting Is Not Monolithic: Two Types of Fronted /U/ in Houston Anglos University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 16 Issue 2 Selected Papers from NWAV 38 Article 14 2010 /u/-Fronting is not Monolithic: Two Types of Fronted /u/ in Houston Anglos Christian Koops Rice University Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl Recommended Citation Koops, Christian (2010) "/u/-Fronting is not Monolithic: Two Types of Fronted /u/ in Houston Anglos," University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: Vol. 16 : Iss. 2 , Article 14. Available at: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol16/iss2/14 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol16/iss2/14 For more information, please contact [email protected]. /u/-Fronting is not Monolithic: Two Types of Fronted /u/ in Houston Anglos Abstract Houston Anglos of all ages show advanced degrees of /u/-fronting. However, a close acoustic analysis of the fronted /u/ of younger and older Anglo Houstonians reveals two distinct types: a more monophthongal type, consistent with prior descriptions of fronted /u/ in the rural South, and a more diphthongal type, consistent with descriptions of /u/-fronting in non-Southern speakers. The two types differ in a number of fine temporal and spectral details. This provides an opportunity to test the hypothesis that the ongoing, supra-regional fronting of /u/ in North America represents an adoption of the older, Southern fronting pattern. Taken together with previous findings, the data presented in this paper argue against this view and for an analysis of /u/-fronting as independently innovated in the South and outside of the South. Judging by the data from Houston, today the traditional Southern type of fronting is being abandoned in the urban South in favor of the newer, regionally unmarked type. The paper explores the implications of these findings for sociophonetic studies of the urban South, speech perception studies, and the analysis of other cases of “shared” shifts. This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol16/iss2/14 /u/-Fronting is not Monolithic: Two Types of Fronted /u/ in Houston Anglos Christian Koops 1 Introduction Despite the large and growing body of work documenting the fronting of the vowel /u/ (GOOSE) in North America, one basic question about this sound change has so far not been addressed empiri- cally: What is the relationship between today’s supra-regional fronting of /u/, especially in the speech of Anglos (e.g., Labov et al. 2006:152–155), and /u/-fronting as traditionally found in Southern American English (e.g., Bailey 1997)? Specifically, does the former process represent an adoption of the latter? Are they, in this sense, the same shift? What is clear is that fronted /u/ was first attested in Southern speakers, as early as the mid- 1800s (Bailey 1997:263). A century later, the Linguistic Atlas research found it to be still largely a Southern feature (see Thomas’ 2001 review). Since then, however, fronted /u/ has come to cover “90% of the North American continent” (Labov 2008:27). Given these facts, Thomas (2001:33) suggests that fronted /u/ “spilled out of the South” and spread northward and westward. If fronted /u/ is indeed a borrowed Southern feature, it may be justified to speak of a single shift. There are some unresolved problems with this scenario, however. One concerns the linguistic conditioning of /u/-fronting. In the South, /u/ has overcome, at least to some degree, the ban on fronting before coda-/l/ which exists in all non-Southern varieties (e.g., Labov et al. 2006:152). If the Southern fronted /u/ was borrowed, why did geographic diffusion lead to the introduction of a new constraint rather than to further allophonic leveling? Perhaps the constraint was still in place around mid-century when /u/-fronting started to spread beyond the South. But even if that is true, why does the pre-/l/ constraint show no signs of weakening today even in those non-Southern dia- lects which have exceeded the South in the degree of fronting in other environments (Labov et al. 2006:153) and where /u/-fronting is an otherwise completed shift (e.g., Baranowski 2008)? Another problem is that Southern speech lacks overt prestige in the eyes of non-Southerners (Preston 1997). This makes it a priori unlikely for a Southern feature to gain such wide currency so rapidly. While covertly prestigious Southern features may have an advantage (e.g., Eckert 1996), in non-Southern locales fronted /u/ appears to be a prestige variant spreading in a change- from-above fashion (Baranowski 2008; see also Labov 2001:169 on fronted /o/ in Philadelphia). In view of these problems, an alternative scenario in which /u/-fronting was independently in- novated in the South and outside of the South bears consideration. Distinct geographic and social origins would have allowed each fronting process to accrue its own linguistic and social history. Incompatible aspects of /u/-fronting in different areas today may be attributable to those histories. Crucially, one further consequence of this hypothesis is that the resulting fronted variants of /u/ may also show fine phonetic differences reflecting their independent origins. This paper discusses such phonetic differences and points to the second scenario as the more likely one. I begin by reviewing relevant prior phonetic descriptions of fronted /u/ (Section 2). Next, I present sociophonetic data from Houston, where recent demographic changes have caused Anglos to abandon many Southern phonological variants in favor of non-Southern variants. A case in point are two phonetically distinct types of fronted /u/. The two types found in Houston match prior descriptions of /u/-fronting in the South and outside the South, respectively (Section 3). The contrasts between them, taken together with earlier findings, argue against analyzing one as histor- ically derived from the other (Section 4). Finally, I discuss the implications of these findings for three areas of inquiry: studies of /u/-fronting in the urban South, perception studies dealing with fronted /u/, and the analysis of similar ‘shared’ shifts (Section 5). 2 Previous Phonetic Descriptions of Fronted /u/ Starting with fronted /u/ in non-Southern speakers, the details of previous descriptions are strik- ingly similar. In all cases, it is the nucleus of /u/, i.e., its first articulatory target, that is primarily affected, while the offglide target remains close to /u/’s original high back position. As a result, U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 16.2, 2010 114 CHRISTIAN KOOPS fronting entails strong diphthongization. Metcalf (1971:9) describes a common Los Angeles pro- nunciation as a “long e” followed by a “long u”, phonetically [iu]. Hinton et al. (1987:120) cite [ɨu] as an early advanced variant in California. Labov (2001:197) illustrates the progression of /u/- 1 fronting in Philadelphia with the variants [ʉ̠ʊ], [ʉ̟ʊ], and [ɪʊ] in the word moved. Ash’s (1996:12) spectrogram of a fronted /u/ in the word two spoken by an Iowa speaker makes it clear that the offglide target remains back. To the degree that the glide is affected, this seems to be a secondary effect. Hinton et al. note “frequent truncation of the offglide” (119) in California. Their examples all involve coronal codas, where the lack of an audible backglide can be attributed to place assimi- lation of the glide to the following consonant. This seems to be common, though not necessary, in advanced varieties. For example, Eckert (2008:29) notes pre-coronal glide deletion for the stereo- typical California surfer pronunciation of dude, [dyd], but not for the Valley Girl style, where food is pronounced [fɪwd]. Finally, as seen in these transcriptions, the fronted onset is often described as unrounded. However, the issue of rounding has so far not been addressed instrumentally. Phonetic descriptions of fronted /u/ in the Southern states, specifically in the rural South, pre- sent a more complex picture. Starting with the front-back dimension, one well-documented feature concerns the direction of the offglide trajectory. In Southern speakers with advanced fronting, the glide target may be in front of the nucleus. For example, Thomas’ (2004) detailed account of con- temporary rural Southern variants includes both slight backglides, e.g., from [y ̞] to [ʉ], and frontglides, e.g., [ʉ̞] to [y ̟]. Front-gliding /u/ was studied acoustically by Labov et al. (1972:135– 144) for a group of Coastal North Carolina speakers. It is also illustrated by Labov et al. (2006:258) for a speaker from Birmingham, Alabama. Less frequently discussed is the fact that fronted /u/ in the South involves only a limited amount of front-back movement, in fact sometimes none at all. An example is the variant [y ̞y] mentioned by Thomas (2004). Even the diphthongal variants in Thomas’ summary mostly span less than one major degree of advancement. In the speech of Labov et al.’s (2006) featured speaker from Birmingham, the amount of upward movement far exceeds the amount of front-back move- ment. Typically, “the glide is entirely a matter of closure of height alone” (256). Kurath (1964:117), referring to a slightly earlier stage of /u/-fronting in the South, considered high central [ʉː ~ ʉʊ] to be the most common Southern variants, both with no change in advancement. A third unique aspect of fronted /u/ in the South, already seen in some of the variants cited here, is that fronting may go along with lowering of the nucleus. Strong lowering can be seen in several of Labov et al.’s (1972) North Carolina speakers and in Labov et al.’s (2006) emblematic Birmingham speaker. Lowering is also present in some, but not many, of the Southerners plotted in Thomas (2001).
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